Obviously God knows all. Perhaps the real question is: “What is there to be known?” But the questions are the same at a very fundamental level. What God knows is what there is to know and what there is to know is known by God. First, if things are true, that is — if Creation … [Read more…]
Reductionism is often seen as explaining something away and, unfortunately, that’s often the goal of those doing the reducing. This isn’t a new development in modern thought. When St. Augustine explained the mind in terms of three components — intellect, memory, and will — he was reducing a complex entity to three components he felt … [Read more…]
I’ve argued that moral reasoning has the nature of narrative, a story, rather than being reasoning about axiomatic principles. This is certainly the most reasonable standard for Christians who accept the reality of the Incarnation. The Son of God didn’t come in glory carrying books on systematic theology and other supporting works in logic and … [Read more…]
What’s it like to be a bat? That question was a matter of debate in certain philosophical circles a decade or two ago. I read a some contributions to that debate and remember at first feeling sympathy for the arguments of those who were considered champions of the mind as something that is independent of … [Read more…]
We know Christ redeemed us, but what does that mean? The usual answer is: Christ paid for our sins on the cross including our original sin. A gruesome scene arises in the imagination of Christ being tormented by every sin I ever committed but most of all by the original sin we’re all said to … [Read more…]
[Part 4: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] On page 437, Barth claims: “As an act of thinking [thinking of eternity] it dissolves itself; it participates in the pure thought of God, and is therefore an accepted sacrifice, living, holy, acceptable to God.” Barth — … [Read more…]
[Part 3: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] As a passing matter, I noted a hint of modal logic in a passage beginning around the middle of page 324 with: “Thus, before every moment in time, God foreordains… Here is it that we encounter the … [Read more…]
Many Christians throughout history have insisted on seeing imputable guilt behind all the sins for which we are responsible. This seems wrong to me. You can be responsible for a situation, say the self-destructively rebellious state of a teenager, though you might well be free of guilt in a criminal or moral sense. Being responsible, … [Read more…]
[Part 2: Continuation of my comments upon reading Barth’s “The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University paperback, 1968] Around page 290, we see Barth trying to turn towards hope. Unfortunately, he has left himself in the position of most modern existentialists: all that we know to be real is nothingness and we have to look … [Read more…]
Starting at the bottom of page 280 [“The Epistle to the Romans”, Oxford University Press paperback, 1968], we read: What is human and worldly and historical and ‘natural’ is shown to be what it veritably is in its relation to God the Creator — only a transparent thing, only an image, only a sign, only … [Read more…]